


Remembrances

by Wandering_Channeler



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Channeler/pseuds/Wandering_Channeler
Summary: A short snippet taking place a handful of years after the end of the series. The man once known as Rand al’Thor listens to a gleeman sing of the Last Battle, and reflects on his past.
Kudos: 13





	Remembrances

Erum Kashodred stood on a raised platform at the back of the inn and strummed his harp. He had been performing since before sunset, and the hour was growing late. It was nearly time to tell his last story and pack up for the night. Nearly time, but not quite. The room didn’t have the right atmosphere for the tale he wanted to tell. He needed to set it up properly. He began a slow, contemplative song about two lovers separated by both distance and time. As he played and sang, he reflected on the recent past.  
He was originally from Caerhien, but rarely thought of himself as belonging to that country anymore. He had left to join the forces of the Light in the Last Battle, fighting with those who had forsaken their previous lives to follow the Dragon Reborn. He had seen many good people die in the fighting, and had realized that actual war was nothing like the stories made it out to be. The stories never conveyed the rawness, the pure terror of first hand experience. Once everything had been said and done and the Dragon Reborn’s victory accomplished, Erum had decided that someone needed to get the stories right. Regular people needed to know the full extent of the price that had been paid during the Last Battle. In order to achieve this, he had apprenticed himself to a gleeman named Thom Merrilin. The old man had been reluctant to take Erum as an apprentice at first, but had eventually caved. Under Master Merrilin’s guidance, Erum had learned how to juggle, eat fire, play the harp and flute, tell many tales, and the other arts of being a gleeman. It had been just over a year since his apprenticeship had ended, but Erum was confident in the skills he had learned. Thom Merrilin was a true master of the craft, and had been a very good teacher. Now Erum traveled from town to town and country to country, into Seanchan controlled lands and back out again, and he had even gone to the Aiel Waste once. This night, he was somewhere in southern Shienar, in an inn called The Dragon’s Peace.   
He allowed his thoughts to return to the present as he strummed the last chord of the song and looked around. The dimly lit common room of The Dragon’s Peace was filled with a wide variety of patrons. There were Borderlanders of course, but there were also people from Tear, Andor, Illian, his native Caerhien, and a scattering of Aiel. He also saw a handful of people from Seanchan controlled lands, including some Seanchan themselves. Those seemed to be commoners in stead of nobles, thank the Light. Seanchan nobles were more prickly than Aiel. He even thought he saw some of those black coated Asha’man. That made him shiver. The Last Battle had instilled Erum with a healthy awe and respect for all channelers. A man couldn’t see something like the destruction just a few of them could cause and walk away from that without having his perceptions changed in one way or another.   
He nodded to himself. Those listening somehow felt ready. He wasn’t sure how to explain how he knew, but he had a natural sense for these kinds of things. Maybe it was in the way they sat and looked at him with expectation. Maybe it was in the way that they had fallen silent so they could pay better attention to his stories and songs. Maybe it was a combination of those, and maybe it was something else entirely. Regardless of where the knowledge came from, he knew that the time was right for his last story of the night. He took a sip of wine and began “The Ballad of the Dragon.” As he sang the opening phrase, a tall man at a table in a nearby corner looked up with interest.

***

The man who had once been known as the Dragon Reborn looked up as the gleeman began singing of the prophecies which he had fulfilled. He had left that part of his life behind for good, but he would never be able to forget who he had been and what he had done. He now went by a different name, and even had a different body. No one who didn’t already know would have no reason to suspect who he was, and he liked it that way. The past few years of his life had given him some much needed time to rest and recover from the events that had lead to the end of the Third Age. He was sitting at a table with Aviendha, who had recently tracked him down for one of her sporadic visits. She noticed his attention shift to the gleeman, of course. Not much escaped her notice.  
“Do you wish to leave?” She asked quietly. He shook his head. He was mildly curious to see how accurate this Gleeman’s telling was. He had heard versions that ranged from startlingly close to the truth to ridiculously fanciful. He often didn’t want to relive that part of his life, but he decided to sit through it this night.  
As the gleeman continued the tale, the man who had once been called Rand al’Thor remembered it all. He remembered the pain. The anger. The sense of being helpless before the will of the Pattern despite the great power he had been given. He remembered his failures, and he remembered his successes. He remembered nearly losing himself in attempting to be strong, and he remembered rediscovering himself. He remembered old wounds, both physical and mental. He remembered embracing death. And he remembered awakening in his new body and going off to start a new life. Through it all, like shining threads woven into a tapestry, he remembered love. Without the love of those closest to him and his love for them, he knew that he would have fallen and the world would have ended. As the gleeman played and sang, the man who had been the Dragon Reborn allowed the memories to return.

***

Erum played the closing theme to “The Ballad of the Dragon” and allowed the final notes to fade into silence, satisfied. This had been his best performance of it yet. He made a flourishing bow as those who had been listening applauded, then he carefully wiped down his harp and placed it gently back into its case. When he looked up, he saw the same man he had noticed earlier standing by the platform on which Erum had been performing, looking at him.  
When Erum met his eyes, the man said, “That was very close to how things really were. It brought back the memories in a way that wasn’t painful for once. Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome,” Erum said, surprised. He had heard statements like that before, but never with such sincerity. “May I ask your name, good sir?” The other man hesitated, then quietly gave it.  
“My name is Hurin.” Without looking back, he turned and walked toward the staircase in a back corner of the inn. Erum wondered what this Hurin had gone through in the Last Battle that made him speak of painless memories with such gratitude, but he figured that everyone who had lived through it hadn’t escaped without some painful memories. Light knew that Erum had not. Still, he couldn’t help feeling that this Hurin had a story that would make a great ballad of its own.

***

Aviendha followed Hurin as he walked up the stairs to the room they had bought for the night.  
“You seem thoughtful, Hurin al’Therin,” she said as she came up next to him. She still walked with a limp from her injuries during the Last Battle, despite the best the Aes Sedai and Asha’man could do. Hurin, he almost never thought of himself as Rand anymore, barely noticed her limp. It was just another part of her, so it didn’t matter. It certainly didn’t reduce his love for her.  
“I am,” he said. “Even now, I rarely remember those days without pain and regret.”  
“But tonight was different.” It wasn’t a question.  
“Tonight was different,” he agreed. He felt her curiosity through the little bundle of emotions in his head that was the bond to her. He could barely remember what life had been like without those balls of emotion and physical sensations that were his connections to Min, Aviendha, and Elayne. They were as much a part of him as the memories he had relived during the gleeman’s performance. “I’m coming to learn to allow the past to stay there,” he explained. “I will never be able to forget who I was before, and I don’t want to. There’s a difference between remembering and allowing the memories to overcome me, however, and I’m slowly learning that balance. The more I remember, the closer I come to finding it.”  
“So that is why you chose the name you did,” she said in realization. “You never explained before.” Hurin nodded.   
He had chosen the name Hurin to remember the unwavering loyalty of one man who had died believing that “Lord Rand” would win in the end.   
He had chosen the name al’Therin to remember who he had once been, to learn from the mistakes that man had made, and to serve as a constant reminder to one of the most important realizations of his life.  
The reason why he and everyone else who lived was reborn was so that they would each have another chance.   
He used that knowledge each day to remind himself that while he had been far from perfect in the way he had handled things leading up to and during the Last Battle, he had done better this time. He had succeeded where Lews Therin had failed. He knew that things could have gone much differently, and they very nearly had. And so he used his name to remember, and be grateful for the lessons it had given.


End file.
